Ambient Metals, Elemental Carbon, and Wheeze and Cough in New York City Children through 24 Months of Age

Rationale: The effects of exposure to specific components of ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5), including metals and elemental carbon (EC), have not been fully characterized in young children. Objectives: To compare temporal associations among PM2.5; individual metal constituents of ambient PM2.5, including nickel (Ni), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn); and EC and longitudinal reports of respiratory symptoms through 24 months of age. Methods: Study participants were selected from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health birth cohort recruited in New York City between 1998 and 2006. Respiratory symptom data were collected by questionnaire every 3 months through 24 months of age. Ambient pollutant data were obtained from state-operated stationary monitoring sites located within the study area. For each subject, 3-month average inverse-distance weighted concentrations of Ni, V, Zn, EC, and PM2.5 were calculated for each symptom-reporting period based on the questionnaire date and the preceding 3 months. Associations between pollutants and symptoms were characterized using generalized additive mixed effects models, adjusting for sex, ethnicity, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, and calendar time. Measurements and Main Results: Increases in ambient Ni and V concentrations were associated significantly with increased probability of wheeze. Increases in EC were associated significantly with cough during the cold/flu season. Total PM2.5 was not associated with wheeze or cough. Conclusions: These results suggest that exposure to ambient metals and EC from heating oil and/or traffic at levels characteristic of urban environments may be associated with respiratory symptoms among very young children

Working out Douglas’ aphorism: discarded objects, categorisation practices, and moral inquiries

This article aims to reconsider Mary Douglas’ well-known aphorism – that, ‘where there is dirt there is system’ – through the work of street cleaning in and the handling of detritus in the Upper Town district of Gibraltar. In ‘working out’ the aphorism, we adopt an ethnomethodological approach and focus upon the description of situated categorisation practices in the treatment of waste and dirt. The article is thus concerned with the methods in and through which objects are handled in the everyday work of street cleaning. We describe these practices across three sections concerned with: the seeing of waste as a situated accomplishment; the practical distinction between objects to be removed and those to be left in situ; and the seeing of categories through discarded objects. In this way, rather than explaining the practices of street cleaners via recourse to a notion of ‘system’, we recover the ways in which objects come to be treated, in a situated sense, as a potential ‘inference-rich’ resource for moral reasoning relating to residual categories and predicates of people and places. Keywords: public space, street cleaning, urban maintenance, ethnomethodology, categorisation practices, ethnograph

Imitators of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction

Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) is described by transient narrowing of the airways after exercise. It occurs in approximately 10% of the general population, while athletes may show a higher prevalence, especially in cold weather and ice rink athletes. Diagnosis of EIB is often made on the basis of self-reported symptoms without objective lung function tests, however, the presence of EIB can not be accurately determined on the basis of symptoms and may be under-, over-, or misdiagnosed. The goal of this review is to describe other clinical entities that mimic asthma or EIB symptoms and can be confused with EIB